Cant drive 55? We go 200 mph, and you can, too--maybe

By
Steven Cole Smith

Apr 9, 2009

MARK ELIAS

One of the few animals you don’t expect to see in the middle of the Everglades is a white elephant, but there it is. A couple of miles north of U.S. Highway 41, between Miami and Naples, Fla., you’ll find the Everglades Jetport.

Forty years ago, the Jetport was destined to be the biggest airport in the world, with seven enormous runways to handle supersonic aircraft coming from Europe and South America. But two things went wrong: The supersonic era never happened, and at about the time they built the first 10,499-foot runway, the environmentalists woke up and made noise, and the project died.

Now it’s called the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, although it has little training and even less transition. There are no planes, no permanent facilities, no fuel, no hangars--just two miles of straight and level pavement and a little modular office to house the airport manager, the swamplands equivalent of a lighthouse tender.

This caught the attention of Jean-Paul Libert, 13-time participant in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and co-owner of Delaware-based World Class Driving, one of those companies that has a bunch of exotic cars and lets you drive five of them in one day, rally-style, as you tour the country from one well-heeled neighborhood to the next.

But driving Ferraris and Maseratis on public highways, while certainly enjoyable, does not quite showcase the supercars’ potential. Suppose one found a long, safe stretch of pavement and let people drive the cars to their maximum speed--such as, say, 200 mph? “Everybody told me I was crazy,” Libert said. But he did it anyway.

We were invited to the first “200 mph World Class Driving Xtreme Challenge” but decided to wait and see how many fatalities occurred. There was none. So we went to the second Xtreme Challenge. So did about 15 high-rollers, apparently unaware of recent economic challenges. We didn’t pack a lot before heading to the airport, near Ochopee, Fla., for a shot at going 200 mph: a driver’s license, a helmet and a check for $4,495.

Taped to the door of the refrigerator in that little office at Dade-Collier was a helpful poster identifying Florida’s five types of poisonous snakes. No information was offered regarding alligators, as we would likely know one when we saw one.

In that office, Libert conducted the briefing, emphasis on “brief.” We would start the day on a little road course laid out on the tarmac, getting the feel of shifting gears (all of the cars had auto-manuals) and cornering. The instructors, led by retired sports-car racer Didier Theys, would include former Champ Car World Series driver Jan Heylen, retired endurance racer Roland Linder and Vanina Ickx, an accomplished sports-car racer and daughter of Formula One and sports-car star Jacky Ickx.

The second exercise would prepare us for the top-speed runs. We’d need to get a running start on the taxiway to hit the runway with enough speed to approach 200 mph near the end. So, we’d practice running wide to the left on the taxiway, which led to a 90-degree right turn onto the runway. We’d have to straighten out that turn as much as possible, speeding toward the corner on the right, then drifting out to the left to the off-camber edge of the runway before going balls-out to the end. Cones signaled the backoff point, with about 500 feet needed to brake enough to make a right turn off the runway.

Only three cars present had enough muscle to hit 200 mph: a Ferrari 599 GTB, a Lamborghini Gallardo LP 560 and a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren. We’d save those for last and use an Audi A8, a Lamborghini Superleggera, a Maserati GT and a Ferrari F430 for the slower exercises.

The first exercise went well; the second went slightly less well, as a writer for another automotive publication wiped out a blue taxiway light with the Maserati, which had begun to show the cord on its left front tire. “Heavy car, tight turns, no big deal,” Libert said, but the Maserati was done for the day.

After lunch, it was back to the big runway. We were divided into three groups. Group one would drive the 599, the LP 560 and the SLR, two runs per car. Group two would watch from the end of the runway. Group three would get a ride with Theys in the wild-card car, a Koenigsegg CCX supplied by importer Universal Autosports of New York. The mid-engine, Swedish-built supercar has an 806-hp, 4.7-liter V8 with twin superchargers, and it weighs less than a Mini Cooper convertible. Even if we couldn’t get the Ferrari, the Lambo or the Mercedes up to 200 mph, we’d be guaranteed that experience from the passenger seat of the Koenigsegg, list price almost $1 million.

First, we watched. As impressive as the 599 was in full song, the Koenigsegg ripping down the runway turned all heads. At the end, the exhaust belched flame like a jet’s afterburner.

Next, we rode in the Koenigsegg, one of just seven in the United States. Theys tore around the taxiway, then full-throttled down the runway. “Watch the speedometer!” he shouted. We did. Wow: 215 mph. And that was still 30 mph short of the car’s claimed top speed.

Later that afternoon, we got a chance to drive the Koenigsegg a little. It felt more like a race car than most race cars. The Italian six-speed Cima manual transmission--about the only major part not built by Koenigsegg, and that includes the engine--shifted stiffly, the three pedals were slivers of aluminum best pressed by feet wearing ballet slippers, and the steering made it feel like a go-kart. But man, on our rides as passengers, the car just clicked off one 215-mph run after another and never seemed to breathe hard. It was like riding a thoroughbred--not so great on the trail but superb on the track.

Finally, we headed to the pits for our chance at 200 mph. There were no snakes or alligators, just tricolored herons watching from the sidelines, hunch-shouldered and as solemn as undertakers.

Unfortunately, the SLR had cooked its alternator--not unheard of with that model, Libert said--so the Lambo LP 560 was called into service.

The car was a little twitchy as we headed through the turns onto the runway. Unfortunately, the speedometer was positioned where the co-driver, in this case Ickx, couldn’t see it, and the speedo was the only indication of how fast we are going. And it was not exactly ideal to be making a first pass down the runway, looking down at the speedo, looking up, looking down, looking up, until we hit the marker cones and Ickx yelled, “Brake! Brake! Brake!” With her Belgian accent, it sounded like “Bweak! Bweak! Bweak!” And we did, but the last look at the analog speedometer showed just 198 mph.

On run two, we made 199 mph. Oh, well.

On to the Ferrari 599, with Roland Linder, who at 58 and having lived a good long life, didn’t yell as much. The first run was 198 mph, he said, as he could see the digital speedometer fine from the passenger seat.

For the next run, we made a good launch through the apexes onto the runaway. “Shift!” Linder said. “Shift! Good!” And at the end: “Well done! 200 even!”

We’d gone 200 mph in a street car. “How did it feel?” Libert asked.

“Pretty much like 198,” we replied, as cool as a 300-beat-per-minute heart rate would allow.

At the end of the day, all but three of us had hit 200. “I am guaranteed three returning customers for the next Xtreme Challenge!” Libert told his audience.

The total damage done was two crunched runway lights (one by a World Class Driving employee in a rental car), the SLR’s toasted alternator and the Maserati’s bald front tire.

What did we learn? “It is really possible to bring people up to 200 mph in a safe environment,” Libert said, “and that’s great, because it has been a dream for a lot of people to break that magical barrier.”

So far, Libert has scheduled four more Xtreme dates for 2009, “and two are already sold out. It’s a limited program. We want to do between 75 and 90 people a year, and when we reach 200 people, the program will end. We have had 32 people through it so far, and when we reach 200, it’s over. We want it to be exclusive--to be special.”

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